Sweden’s largest wood products company Setra has confirmed that its Färila sawmill will close in July.
Negotiations between Setra’s management and union representatives ended in disagreement, although the unions confirmed they would not be taking further action.
“Having to close a sawmill is an onerous task,” said Setra president and CEO Kent Torwald. “The extremely strained profitability situation forces us, however, to implement extraordinary measures in order to be able to strengthen our competitiveness over time.”
Setra had also called in a consultant to examine the mill’s future profitability. His suggestion of retaining one of the two current shifts and streamlining sawing to spruce alone was deemed to costly.
“This would have led to increased costs of around SKr20m a year,” said Mr Torwald. “Operating a sawmill at half capacity provides no cost benefits and would not strengthen our long-term competitiveness, which is essential.”
